1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wall adornments. In particular, the present invention relates to devices and systems for affixing re-configurable three-dimensional adornments to vertical surfaces such as walls.
2. The Relevant Technology
Traditional two-dimensional wall decorations, such as paint and wallpaper, are extremely popular for enhancing the decorative aspects of a room. Nevertheless, two-dimensional wall decorations are limited in that they are time-consuming and cumbersome to apply and are difficult to remove. In order to change the decor of a painted room the walls must optionally be stripped and repainted. Wallpapered rooms must also be stripped in a very time consuming process. Therefore, walls decorated with an emphasis on paint and/or wallpaper are non-compatible with the desire to easily and quickly alter a room's decor.
Typical approaches to quickly and frequently altering a room's decor involve using decorations such as pictures, wall-hangings, hanging ornaments, and the like. Such decorations are typically two-dimensional are usually relatively heavy and therefore require the use of permanent-fasteners, such as nails, screws, pushpins, and the like. Because these fasteners are permanent they damage the underlying walls, typically leaving holes once removed. In order to rearrange the decorations either the holes must be patched or the new decorations must be positioned to cover the holes created for the previous decorations. Thus, even conventional removable decorations are incompatible with the desire to frequently reconfigure or redecorate a room.
Another type of decorating system involves the use of thin appliqués that are mounted onto a wall. These appliqués may be temporary or permanent. If permanent, they are glued in place and are difficult to cleanly remove as they leave a thin, tacky residue which gathers dust. Removable appliqués lose their adhesive capability over time and are expensive to replace.
In order to create an illusion of depth, some two-dimensional wall ornaments are designed to be stacked to form a sort of three-dimensional appearance. These sometimes involve smaller component pieces that are layered onto larger background components. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,006 relates to a wall decorating system for using a releasably mounted wall ornament. The wall decorating system uses multi-color images printed on a relatively thick and rigid medium such as foam board that is attached to a wall or similar planer surface with a reusable adhesive. The wall ornament is a planar substrate of uniform thickness that creates a three-dimensional illusion by raising the laminar substrate above the wall surface. Nevertheless, any three-dimensional effect created by elevating a planar surface over another planar surface has limited three-dimensional effects and in fact loses any such effects when viewed from the side.
In some instances, three-dimensional wall ornaments have been utilized to decorate a generally planar wall surface. Typically, the three-dimensional wall ornaments have been made of wood, plaster, a vacuum-formed plastic material, fiberglass, and the like. These prior materials used in making three-dimensional wall ornaments have several drawbacks, however. The heavy weight of wood, plaster and other similar materials require substantial mounting devices, such as nails, screws, and the like. These heavy devices can also endanger an infant or child if the ornament drops from the wall. Casting resins, vacuum-formed plastic, and fiberglass, on the other hand, can be lightweight but usually are brittle, toxic, or sharp when cut, broken, or torn. Additionally, the manufacturing tolerance stack-ups involved in making objects via vacuum forming or glassing can detract from the aesthetics. The vacuum-formed product also has a reduced aesthetic value due to its translucent or transparent appearance and the required flashing which results.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,132,821 relates to a soft pliable wall adornment. The adornment has a flat back portion with removable mounting elements, such as double-sided adhesives, for attachment to a wall. The front portion has a raised relief to create a three-dimensional visual quality. The adornment is soft and pliable so that it is suitable for use in a room with infants, toddlers, and small children. However, the mounting element, though removable, is incompatible with repeated removal and reuse and is not designed to support significant weights for extended periods of time.
Additionally, conventional methods of attaching or adhering decorations to a wall have disadvantages that prevent their use for frequently re-configuring the wall decorations. As mentioned hereinabove, nails, screws, and tacks permanently damage walls while glue, tape, conventional sticky paste, and other adhesives are either too strong and damage the wall, too weak and do not support the decoration, or leave an undesirable and unappealing residue on the wall.
Although easily removed and lacking significant residue when removed, rubber cement has proven inadequate for repeatedly mounting wall decorations for numerous reasons. For example, if a decoration of any substantive weight is mounted with rubber cement the decoration must be held in place until the rubber cement dries, a burdensome process. In addition, each movement of the wall decoration requires a new portion of rubber cement and another episode of holding the wall decoration in place until the decoration dries.